395 Turning off and On

[Dillon200]

Hi Im new to the forum so Hello everyone.

I have been having this problem for over a year now and have just written this email to Garmin support, I thought I would copy it here incase any one else can shed some light on the problem.

Hi about a year ago I contacted you about problems I was having with my 395, it kept turning itself off and on when using the motorcycle mount but was fine using a usb cable in the car. At that time you gave me a new power lead which seemed to solve the issue. Now its doing it again but im not sure its the locating pins as they both seem to be in good condition. I have changed the power source from a switched live to direct from the battery, it made no difference. It all works fine for a while and the 395 keeps its charge but after a few hours it starts to reboot, I get the message "external power lost". No matter how much I wiggle knock or bang the mount to simulate bumpy roads I can not make it do it. I am now wondering if it could be the transformer/voltage reducer overheating, it is currently situated inside the frame under the petrol tank. I intend to re locate it and try again. I would welcome your help and guidance with this as I am running out of ideas.

[tojjer]

Hi,

Had exactly the same thing on my 396 and it was one of the two spring loaded contact pins in the cradle. It was stuck in and not making contact properly. A little bit of contact spray and a few gentle pushes in and out, now works perfectly.

[pidjones]

I don't understand how this happens on a unit with a backup battery. It happened twice on my 396 on our 4200 mile trip in May, an one time it "forgot" almost half the trip log. Seems that if the charging contacts were flaky, it woul just drop down to the battery.

Back when my StreetPilot 2730 was new, I had similar random restart problems with it but only when I had the side displays customized for thin display, which gave more map display. I even sent it in under warranty (back when Garmin had great customer service) and the unit they replaced it with rebooted less, but still did so I went back to the normak side display. My theory is that they have known bugs that are not addressed because marketing is driving new products and could care less about released units. That's the way the company that I used to work for was. Even if service came up with a solution for a released product, they were not permitted to put it out to the customer base before getting engineering approval. Engineers were swamped with new product development and slow to admit service could fix some of their mistakes. We could release a fix as a new product to sell however! Often that was just included as part of a service contract. Big companies get caught up in internal politics and personalities that we know nothing of. Getting a good or bad customer service rep on the phone is not nearly as important as them having a good or bad marketing, QC, engineering or CS head.

Garmin has a bunch of new devices out for other than on-road. I wonder how they are faring? Probably fewer complaints about the interface since the new products are for people that have not been using a GPS for over a decade. Or, maybe we are getting on-road interface that is left-over from on-wrist programing. Any way you look at it, the hardware seems to be getting more powerful but the over-all usefulness declining.

[Dillon200]

Thanks for the reply's, First I have tried cleaning the pins and have also had a new power cable under warrantee (cant fault Garmins after sales service) this cured it for a while but its now back.


The reason the unit re boots when its looses power even though it has an internal battery is because It thinks the ignition has been turned off and so starts to shut down as normal, then power is restored and it boots up again as normal.


Im now thinking this it the inline voltage reducer or transformer getting too hot so I am going to re locate it and try again, Im also talking to Garmin technical again.

[Dillon200]

Just to add today I went to the garage to re locate the transformer, turns out I all ready did that when I changed the power supply from switched live to direct to battery, it now sits next to the battery so quite cool. Back to the drawing board.

[Dillon200]

All out of options and things to try now so Garmin are sending me a new unit. Can't fault their customer service or warrantee. Just hope the new one works better.
Apparently the 395lm is now old news, What replaced it and whats the current weapon of choice in sat navs

[Craig 124]

I have the exact same problemi think it is the pins on the cradle as when mine decides to shut down if I'm quick enoy and give the unit a quick twist in the holder the unit fires back up.I recently was given a second hand cradle from a friend who's unit worked fine.So I have fitted this and finger's crossed it will work fine now

[lather]

I just bought a refurbed 395 and am seeing this thread for the first time. I have not used the 395 yet but have used two 390s for a few years. One of the 390s has always had the lost power problem. I have come up with a fix that works 90% of the time. A simple piece of electrical tape on the bottom of the cradle where the unit bottom lock in. I think this sloves a problem of a loose fit that allows the unit to move a bit with bumps or vibration. Give it a try if you are having this problem.

[Maarten Oyen]

I’m having the exact same problem on my Zumo. I wires it directly to the battery on my CRF450L.
I first noticed one of the pins was a bit stuck. After some WD40, the problem went away for a while. Then, I noticed some wiggling, so I replaced the cradle. This seemed to solve the problem… for about 3000 km. It’s again switching on and off at random and I have no idea why. The GPS is snug in the cradle, the pins are clean and so are the contact points.
Did any of you solve the issue?

[Wallace]

An old thread but for the record, I had a 395, which developed the loss of power symptom, so common to other models.

My first though was the contacts between the cradle and the 395, so I put small blobs of heated rear screen repair paint onto the brass pads. To be honest i don't think that it worked.

I installed 12 Volt meter onto the handlebars, tapped into the supply for the USB regulator and that was rock steady, so it wasn't the bikes CAMBUS system.

After watching the trip information screen with the speed top center there is a speed ring around it I noticed the ring intermittantly disappearing, so I came to the conclusion that the 395 was on it's way out and prompty bought a TomTom!

After using the TT for a short while that I realised that it wasn't for me (Ihated the way it dynamically recalulated a route after I had fixed in my mind where I was going) and bought a 396, only to have the fault reappear after I had removed the GPS from the bike and the contacts got a soaking.

Drying the contacts out with a GENTLE application of a heat gun, followed by some ACF50 seemed to work but I'm still undecided if this has cured the problem. Certainly I am a lot stricter now at fitting the rubber cap over the cradle contacts when I take the GPS unit off.
I may even try replacing the power cable and see how stable that is but I have to wait until the better weather for that.

Bottom line is there is a problem somewhere with the Zumos, there are far too many posts on this forum along similar themes for it not to be.